Blood sample positive with Measles virus. (iStock / Getty Images Plus)
The number of measles cases in Lea County remained unchanged Friday, but public health officials said the window is open for more cases to develop in New Mexico.
As of noon Friday, the New Mexico Department of Health reported nine measles infections in Lea County — five adults and four school-aged children. All of the children and two adults were confirmed to be unvaccinated, while three adults had unknown vaccine status. None of the cases have warranted hospitalization so far.
The cases stem from an outbreak that started in neighboring Gaines County, Texas which had grown to nearly 150 cases Friday and spread to nearby West Texas counties. The majority of those cases are in unvaccinated children. The outbreak resulted in the death of an unvaccinated child, the first measles fatality in 10 years. About 20 people are hospitalized in Texas.
NM Delegation urges new Health Secretary Kennedy to address measles outbreak
While New Mexico has higher vaccination rates reported in children compared to surrounding states, the rising case count in Texas poses threats for surrounding communities, NMDOH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Miranda Durham said.
“We are balancing an overall good vaccination rate, which should be protective against the ongoing outbreak in Texas,” Durham said in a call with Source NM. “But cases continue to grow there and spread across counties.”
Measles symptoms can take an average of two weeks to show, and people can spread the disease four days before a rash develops. That means exposures from when NMDOH declared the outbreak on Feb. 14, may only now appear, and there have been several cases in the meantime.
“It’s really too soon to tell what might happen,” Durham said, noting that the department has reached out to more than 800 people in contract tracing in New Mexico. Officials provided more than 5,135 vaccines statewide, according to NMDOH.
Vaccine information
Measles is a highly contagious virus spread through contact from an infected person’s coughs and sneezes. The airborne particles can hang around hours.
Measles symptoms can appear anywhere from a week to three weeks after exposure and include fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes and a red spotty rash starting on the head and face and spreading over the body. Serious complications can develop, including brain swelling, blindness, pneumonia and death.
The vaccine is highly effective, with adults vaccinated as children having enough immunity to last a lifetime, according to health officials.
Check records online at state Vax View website or call the Department of Health’s immunization program at 1-833-882-6454, available weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
‘Measles can spread like absolute wildfire’
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases currently known – more so than Ebola, smallpox or the novel coronavirus.
“Measles can spread like absolute wildfire,” said Ethan Romero-Severson, an epidemiologist who develops and studies mathematical models to predict the spread of infectious diseases at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “If you have a person who is contagious, 90% of the people around that person, if they’re unvaccinated, will contract the measles.”
Prior to the 1963 vaccines, nearly all children were infected with the measles before age 15, resulting in more than 48,000 hospitalizations and 400 to 500 deaths each year.
“You’re going to get infected or you’re going to get vaccinated, those are kind of your options,” he said.
The best protection is a high rate of vaccination with a recommended threshold of 95% vaccination to keep outbreaks at bay, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Measles is so contagious, it’s kind of vicious in the way that it infects people that even getting to vaccine rates of 90% or 92%, you start to have these little outbreaks exactly like what we’re seeing,” Romero-Severson said.
Romero-Severson said vaccines preventing sickness raises some of the complexities of public health and people’s perception: vaccinated people exposed to measles aren’t getting sick.
“It’s very easy to forget that you did something to protect yourself – and that’s why you didn’t get sick,” he said.
New Mexico’s vaccines
Dr. Melissa Mason, a pediatrician, also chairs the immunization committee for the New Mexico Pediatric Society, and says the success of New Mexico’s high childhood vaccination rate is due in part to Vaccines for Children federal program to provide doctors vaccines for free.
“I really feel like that is due to our vaccines for children program,” Mason said. “It makes it so much easier to access vaccines not only by medical providers, but to enable us to vaccinate our kids.”
Mason said recent cuts at the CDC haven’t affected the program, at this time.
“It’s an expensive program, but it has made all the difference in the world in being able to protect kids from vaccine preventable diseases,” she said. “Periodically it comes up to be discussed if it should be continued or not. I can’t think of a more important public health initiative than being able to provide vaccines to kids.”
Children under 6 months and immunocompromised people cannot receive the vaccine, and Mason warned that during an active community outbreak for those people “to absolutely stay out of public places.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.